‘This is the bloke we want.’

Jingo stabbed a news-clipping, torn from a German magazine and pinned by two darts to our mess noticeboard. Depicting a grinning pilot in full flying-gear and close to — almost kissing — his spotted and long-nosed engine-cowling.

Outside, a dark morning wind punched the canvas-walled mess-tent. It was May, hence the cold winds and black freeze — and Jerry’s distant defiant mutter; the sharp-toothed machine-guns and the growling artillery. Each day more distant because, everywhere, Jerry was in full retreat.

The Russian army had crossed the Oder river and were closing in, on to Berlin. A week, even less, they would be on the outskirts, and soon that would be it. War’s end.

‘Helmut Baldur,’ sticking another toothpick into his mouth as he rapped the clipping. ‘This guy is very bloody good.’

Helmut (Jingo said) was a Bavarian farm-boy and a natural flyer, who had chalked up scores since the war began. Poland, France, Britain, North Africa and Russia. A staggering hundred-and-twenty kills, and not all of them — says Jingo — were obsolete Russian bi-planes with sewing-machine engines. Recently, Helmut had been taking a chunk out of the American daylight bomber force, not to mention the Mustangs and Thunderbolts.

Jingo went on. ‘Intelligence says he is no Nazi fanatic either — and he’s got a few more no-quitters and enough fuel scraped together for one last flight. Jerry radio was ranting on about it — a death-ride.’

‘A death-ride?’ echoed Linus. ‘What kind of stupid shit is that?’

Jingo looked around, ‘Intelligence says it’s anytime soon, so get your kites checked for immediate take-off. Stay ready.’ He made to stalk off, then turned. ‘Helmut’s Focke-Wulf has a blue-nosed cowling. He’s mine.’

‘What about morning patrol?’ asked Nessie.

‘What about it?’ returned Jingo and stalked out.

So that was that and we sat around in awkward lumps; disobeying orders, but visibility was not great. Jingo could just get away with it. I knew what he was thinking, perhaps more than the other guys. ‘Death-ride’, the way his lips formed that word as though it struck right into him. Jingo’s opposite number: a German Ace who didn’t know how to quit, how to stop fighting. Jingo and Helmut might be twin brothers.

So we sat around the mess-tent, drinking coffee. I had a slice of that awful black bread with a scraping of margarine and thin slice of spam. Sitting there and waiting, I realised I needed to pee.

I usually did before a flight. Sometimes even during a flight, so all of us kept a bottle somewhere in the cockpit. Some pilots had a rubber tube hanging out of the kite, but I’ve known ground crews who’d tie a knot in it. So I went behind the mess-tent, separated from the command briefing tent by a plywood partition. I eased out and eased off, then behind the plywood a telephone shrilled.

Jingo answered. I could hear his voice clear as a bell; he always spoke louder when he got excited. He rasped now, at full volume, made a spitting sound — I guessed he’d spat the toothpick out. He went into full shout — yes, spotted in Yellow Zone, cruising at ten thousand metres, not a Rotte or Schwarme, just a straight line abreast. Yes, I heard Jingo, he’d alert the other stations.

Forward spotters had radioed that back and I did up my trousers and went around to the front, in time to hear the exchange.

Radio-operator: I’ll get it out right now, sir.

Jingo: You bloody won’t.

Radio-operator: Sir, I should —

Jingo: (crashing and radio-wrecking sounds) Bloody forget that — (more radio-wrecking sounds) D’you bloody understand?

More radio-crashing sounds and a yell from the operator — sounding like Jingo had kicked over the table. As I came around, he stormed out, face flushed. He shot a look at me.

‘Gus — Helmut’s coming our way. Come on, we’re air-borne!’

‘What about the other squadrons?’ I shouted. ‘They’ve got to know.’

‘Forget them — come on!’

I grabbed his arm and he jerked around. ‘Jingo, we’ve got new blokes in this squadron, jeeze —’

That was when he shook off my arm, grabbed me and shoved me into the control tent. He hissed and spat, the toothpick hitting my cheek. His eyes gleamed like chips of grey ice.

‘They take their bloody chances. We all do. This is the last chance for a decent scrap: let every bugger in and it’s a lolly-scramble —’ He broke off, but that cold look stayed in his eyes. ‘Gus, I’ve written you up for the D.F.C. This is the last great donnybrook of the war, old son, don’t bust it up —’

He broke off again. I thought of those letters from Gavin Boyd’s parents. Of Peachey. And Pussy kicking on that death-tangle of parachute cords. It must have shown in my face, because he hissed again and his eyes went to a mad frosty glitter.

‘Or would you rather go under arrest — right now! Refusing to obey an order — I’ll boot you off flying ops, L.M.F. stamped on your papers in bloody big red letters — would you like that, Gus?’ He paused then shouted the last words, ‘Jeeze, afraid to tackle someone your own size!’

‘Scramble all squadrons and blast them — hell, that’s what Helmut would do, given the choice —’

‘Lost your bloody nerve?’

‘I haven’t lost my bloody mind —’

Jingo thumbed the button that sent the alarms blaring over the tannoy and picked up the mike. A furious glance at me, moustache bristling, snarling the words almost. ‘Red and Blue Sections, scramble — scramble —’ Throwing down the mike, ‘Well, Gus, are you bloody yellow —’

He stopped then, maybe realising he’d gone too far. The shouts and stamps of booted feet, the siren blaring, orders bawled out. And I don’t know why — when all I had to do was tell the section leaders, knowing then that Jingo would not dare carry out his threats — I just nodded. That mad gleam in his eyes was suddenly like the hurt of a kicked puppy.

‘Alright, Jingo. One yellow wingman for a bloody crazy Red Leader.’

The madness and hurt went from his eyes like a wind gusting away smoke. A hard slap on my shoulders, a gleam of white teeth, then his boots splashed in a puddle as he ran out. I was tingling with cold doubt because this was mad. Not till now had I realised what desperate fires were stoked in that man. My own boots splashed in the puddle as I ran after him.

I nearly collided with Pinky, who must’ve been near the control tent, then put him from mind. That shrill alarm was biting into my brain, taking over conscious thought, like a bugle screaming the call to action.

Jingo lumbered ahead, pilots running to their fighters. Linus cursing as he got an arm in the wrong sleeve of his flying jacket. Ten-Yards Reg, yelling with delight, throwing up his flying-helmet and catching it. Lars hopping as he tried to put on a flying boot and run at the same time.

I was at my Tempest, a ground crewman thrusting my parachute at me. A ‘Give ’em hell, guv’ and I was boosted onto the wing and throwing myself into the cockpit. Hands already running over the controls and I glanced sideways to Jingo’s Tempest. He grinned back, his shout of laughter lost in the roar of turning blades.

You cannot do anything with guys like him. Except follow them.

We climbed quickly to ten thousand metres. With no briefing, there was a sense among the boys of something not quite right. One or two asked a question and received a terse ‘Shut up!’ Pinky said his altimeter was playing up; Jingo told him to stick it where the sun didn’t shine and keep station.

It was about ten minutes to the vector position — or at least where they would be now. Jingo made the strangest preparation. Not the usual overlapping petrol layer but spacing us out in a long straight line; all sixteen of the flight, himself in the centre and slightly forward.

A strange formation. Like cavalry in line for battle. Chanson du Roland came to mind. That little band of chosen knights …? There were some more intercom mutters and the same terse response — shut up.

I remembered with an uneasy little stab those words I always mouthed before a flight — touch the face of God — and tried to relax, telling myself it did not matter. And it didn’t, except I was up at ten thousand metres, in the strangest formation ever and following a skipper who was quite possibly off his rocker. And thinking on that, hearing my breath loud in the oxygen mask, trying to speak those words, but they would not come to my dry lips, held somewhere on my tongue.

This was my last mission. I knew it.

Now Jingo was speaking. He said this formation was to ensure a ‘maximum surveillance’. We — this squadron — had the chance to knock Jerry right out of the war. We were up against their last crack unit: sixteen of them, like us. We could handle them, because he knew us all and there were none better. If everyone reacted like I did, then all our doubts fled, each of us inspired with a burning spirit to win.

Let lords who love a battle, follow me!

And Jingo led us like he had a wavelength wired right into Helmut’s mind. Or maybe Helmut knew about Jingo and was headed our way — as though they had a personal connection; perhaps, being so alike, they did. Helmut from his Bavarian hayfields, Jingo from his coal-mine, but the war had made them battle-leaders, and this war, fought so high, gods of battle. Let lords who love a —

‘Bandits ahead.’

Jingo’s flat voice interrupted my thoughts. It was very loud over the intercom. I pushed fancy and half-formed sentences from my mind. I looked ahead into the blue hazy sky and it was never more clear. But I swear, good eyes though I had, it was some full ten seconds before I saw what Jingo did — microscopic black dots coming straight towards us. And they were strung out like us!

In a line, as described. Jingo did not order us into battle formation. Nor did the line of approaching black dots change formation. Yes, Jingo and Helmut, their minds as one. Focke-Wulf and Tempest, coming together at a closing speed of fourteen hundred k’s. About a minute before we make contact: sometimes that is too much time for thinking.

Thinking about Helmut’s wing. They were the latest model of the Focke-Wulf 190; only a few made in these last months of the war. Coming to fight the battle Jingo had dreamed of in his early coal-dark life.

They were closer. Now we could see the long-nosed straight-winged outlines, closing deadly as knights with levelled lances. We were evenly matched for this clash between warriors — and let it be written that there is honour in combat.

Closer.

This closing minute was unreal, unreal to be sitting motionless in the cockpit, hearing my own loud breath; the black silhouettes of those German fighters ever larger. Jingo to the right of me, facing him a Focke-Wulf, also dead centre and slightly ahead of the others. The engine-cowling was painted blue.

Helmut Baldur, for sure.

Dark tracer lines were flicking out from the German fighters — machine-guns, getting the distance. But we did not fire back. It was as though the war had lost importance — as though in those last seconds we were detached from reality. More dark flicking lines, but we kept going because Jingo’s battle-line never gives way.

Closer!

Black machine-gun lines were streaking past me from the plane opposite me, the long nose foreshortened, sunlight sparkling off the bubble canopy, those black tracer lines streaking towards and past me — my body tensed, screwed to muscle-wrenching tension — then Jingo’s super-calm voice.

‘Alright boys, get stuck in.’

Suddenly the two straight onrushing lines slip and turn, because — I’m sure — Helmut Baldur had shouted to his own knights. The sky exploded into a mad screaming mêlée of black shapes and orange cannon-tracer.

I fired. The Focke-Wulf ahead was already streaming cannon-shells past my canopy. It jerked upward, either away from collision or mortally hit, and I slipped underneath. A wrenching jar: maybe my tailfin had scraped its belly. Already I was kicking the rudder sideways and turning, tight as hell, the blood pounding in my temples.

Another black shape hurtled past, one of ours. I kicked again and turned as cannon-fire streamed past; bore straight ahead at another twisting blurred shape. Only instinct thumbed the firing button, and my cannon-shells exploded over a long-nosed snout, the blurred shape corkscrewing sideways and down — forget the one you’ve shot — angling the Tempest up this time, glancing over.

For a moment, I was out of the loop, the sky ahead criss-crossed with fleeting dark shapes, fretworking in the mad mill of a dogfight. A Focke twisted away, one wing tearing from the fuselage; past me a Tempest slewed awkwardly, I glimpsed engine-flames licking around a horned helmet, then the aircraft exploded and Lars had gone to join his Viking ancestors.

Intercom chatter, the jabbering of frenzied voices, once the mad kookaburra scream of Ten-Yards Reg. It’d been going on all the time, but suddenly it broke in my ears like a shattering wave.

‘Blue Leader, he’s on your tail!’

‘Nessie, break — break!’

‘Shit he’s plastered me, on fire —’

‘Gaston, you’re leaking glycol!’

And through this screaming medley of tongues: Jerry chatter, achtung, achtung, raus — hoch, hoch! So kicked the rudder again, jerked the control column for another tight eyepopping swerve. Another dark shape in front, no-deflection shot. The aircraft jarred and the cannon-shells spurted ahead, the shot-torn shape disappeared.

And heading back in, letting the tension scream in the slipstream past my wings. Jingo’s fire in me, to fight and kill, the loud chatter in my ears, the mask glued with hot sweat to my face, kick away to miss another sudden fleeting black shape, Tempest or Focke-Wulf, no time to register —

Battle has its highlight and full tide. Dogfights last only minutes and in the pause — the ebb — as the tide turns, there is a sense in us that this is the utmost moment of this untidy, wrenching, shattering death. My ears dinned with screaming chatter as I jerked my powerful machine around — it shook as my cannons yammered at another black-fleeting shape. Glimpsing the red indicator light — fewer than five hundred rounds left, some three seconds’ firing.

And turning tightly again, suddenly the sky was clearing, the way it magically does; two, maybe three minutes had passed, tops, and the black shapes were breaking away. So I swooped around, still alive and death mattering less in that moment — the dogfight losing height and the ground closer.

Eight of theirs and six of ours had gone down. Ten-Yards Reg had rammed the tail of a Focke and had to bale out, screaming obscenities all the way down. Sven the Dane was gone — head-on collision with a Focke — and Nessie had baled out of his burning fighter. But then — that moment of swooping — I saw it.

Out of the blue-dark lines, something framed crystal-sharp: a Tempest and a Focke-Wulf, locked in their own private fight. They are wheeling and turning, so close that their wings almost touched. Such skill and intensity that even before sunlight flashed on a blue cowling, I knew who they were. Helmut and Jingo, they had been fighting the full endless minutes of the encounter. Scrapping with intense blinding fury. The end came just as I watched.

Jingo half-rolled out, but Helmut — guessing — turned the tightest wing-tearing corner and got inside. His cannon blazing as Jingo finished the roll — straight into a broadside of cannon-shells.

It was like the world slowing down, only that little scene was sharp and clear. The sparkling orange tinkle of cannonfire, each an exploding lump of metal bursting into the engine and underslung snout. And those were mortal strikes, I knew it, yelling into my intercom as Jingo’s Tempest shuddered and slackly lost way.

‘Red Leader down! Red Leader down!’

Seeing this in a half-minute, but seconds too long. Breaking the most basic rule of survival, to stay alert — because even as the dogfight cleared and Helmut’s shells shattered Jingo’s engine, a Focke swooped with hawk speed, unleashing a last cannon-blast at my fighter.

And a 20mm cannon-shell exploded on the dorsal armour-plate behind my head.

It was like a slamming punch from behind, my eardrums were deafened, eyes misted, it was like my brains were pounded to jelly and I was choking into the oxygen-mask. Registering on those orange golf-balls floating lazily past my cockpit, which could take my kite apart like a kid ripping up a lolly-bag.

In the same eyeblink moment, instinct took over, and I kicked the rudder-bar though my dead brain said nothing. Still choking, the red mist before my eyes turning black, straining tightly as the G-forces pressed their giant hand. Still alert to the chatter —

‘Bail out Nessie, you’re a flamer —’

‘Linus, coming in four o’clock —’

‘Red Leader down —’

The last my own voice, screaming again into the throat-mike, punching cold awareness into my brain. I half-rolled out, and flinched as a dark shape flashed in front, that Focke-Wulf, now wreathed in flames and glycol — Linus screaming exultantly into the intercom.

‘Got the bugger!’

I was in a deep dive, my tail ailerons had waggled loose, a cannon-shell had scored across the starboard wing, my canopy had splintered on the same side. I’d lost sight of Jingo and Helmut, somewhere in that green-brown landscape rising so quickly. But because I was tuned — keyed — to a super-alert, I glimpsed the two small cross-winged shapes below and tipped my Tempest more steeply downward.

Steep enough for those G-forces to again gather dark edges at my eyes. Now I could see the cross-shapes more clearly: the first a Tempest, the second a Focke-Wulf. The Tempest trailing black smoke.

Red Leader was in trouble but I could save him. Then an odd thought seized me: did I want to? He’d threatened to break me, good men had just died because of his obsession with glory — hell, he’d sworn to brand me a coward! This bloody death-ride was of his choosing —

And realising he knew that too. He was not asking for help on the intercom, too proud. And those thoughts fleeting, I dived at an angle to intercept, closer. The Focke-Wulf’s bubble canopy had great visibility, he would spot me soon. I squinted through my own oil-smeared canopy — they were nearly at ground level now. Jingo’s Tempest was ducking and weaving, the Focke keeping on its tail as though connected with invisible wire. More spurts of the orange-spaced cannon tracer — more hits and more glycol coolant streaming like white fuming blood from the engine. He twisted and swerved, but Helmut’s Focke hung on like the Angel of Death.

Jingo had a minute, less. Already Helmut’s cannon-fire was spotting the brown earth around him. He was out of height — soon out of life.

I had moments — tipping even steeper, Helmut’s green-spotted Focke filling my sight. And yes, like the top predator he was, sensing this and turning — so low, I swear a wingtip scored the muddy earth as he did. And me angling too, Helmut’s Focke full in my sights, a no-deflection shot, closer —

Thumb hard.

So close that the cannon-fire did not stream out on its lazy deflection turn. It spurted like orange explosive poison and struck the blue-nosed fighter; the waver-lines of a propeller shattering, the engine-cowling torn, the bubble canopy exploding in bright flashing shards, black smoke masking what the shells had done to the pilot.

And Jingo’s fighter already belly-scoring the ground, a wing tearing away and the plane corkscrewing around, nose down and tail up. Mud spurting like a bow-wave and what was left of his prop chewed a hold in the hedge. In the same moment, from the corner of my eye, I saw Helmut’s strike the ground with terrible force and explode in a yellow-dark mushroom of black smoke and flame.

Registering this in blinking images, because something was breaking inside my fighter. Maybe those last cannon-shells or the steep dive, but the ground was rushing up. I hauled with all my strength on the controls but barely got the nose up before — with a jarring slamming crash — I came down in just about the same black score-marks of Jingo’s fighter.

Pain stabbed as my head bashed forward onto the control panel, luckily the thick leather helmet took most of the impact. Not all: blood was running down the side of my face, hot and masking — but no time to think about that, because Tearing Kea had shuddered to a broken stop and suddenly there was flame and black smoke — time to get out.

I stabbed the release and the canopy flew off. Dizzy and hurting, fighting off a sudden wrenching cramp as I clambered out. I skidded on the wing, my flying-boots as heavy as lead. I grabbed the pistol from the side-pocket and tumbled off. The smoke was even thicker as I landed on the ground, muck under my body, an icy mush against my cheek.

Then staggering to my feet and running, still the snarl of fighters overhead and criss-cross white vapour lines in the blue sky. Jingo’s fighter was ahead, black smoke climbing around the upturned tail, the propellers like bent fangs. He was halfway out of the cockpit and I grabbed one arm and hauled him out. The bitter-smelling smoke swept around us as I pulled him clear.

‘Jingo — you alright?’

He was on his knees, head bowed. Then that down-turned head slowly raised and he tore off his goggles and mask. He looked at me as though stunned, uncomprehending. His eyes flicked over to the funeral pyre of Helmut’s fighter and he whispered, the words catching in his throat.

‘Should’ve let me fight it out … the way it was supposed to be …’

I grabbed him tight and pulled him up. As I did a distant crack of sound came and I looked over. ‘Jingo, this is not Roland and Oliver — and if you want to die, those buggers will oblige.’

Another faint ‘crack’ as Jingo blinked at me. Then he looked back, over the distant field; on the far side, the black shapes of German infantry as they ran towards us. Jingo looked back, and a sharp sane look came to his eyes as though all his cloudy dreams of glory had been torn away. It was like a rebirth of spirit.

‘Kiwi ratbag. I’ll never forgive you for downing Helmut.’

And he grinned, all the old fire and humour returned. And we ran, clumping heavily across the cold ground, followed by the less-distant gunfire.

Overhead, the snarl of combat had nearly died away.

Ahead, across the long field, was a dark fringe of trees. At one side, Helmut’s fighter smoked a thick cloud upward. It was still bitterly cold, as though even the sky was blue. Through the air came a crackle and snap like ice breaking — the flat rifle-shots of those pursuing Germans.

Jingo glanced back once. ‘Did you ditch a good kite?’

‘Rudder’s shot away.’

He gasped as he ran, holding a hand to his side; muttered once about a cracked rib. He saw the old Luger stuck in my belt and grinned. ‘Think you can stop the German army with that?’

‘No, I’ll pull faces at them — come on!’

We ran. The sky was clear now, the scrawls of white vapour fading. Then from nowhere, a Tempest roared in low, the goggled pilot looking down as he banked. A long black eel wriggled on the cowling. As we watched, it soared back up and over the trees.

Another scatter of the crackling shots as we looked back. Some twenty German troops, spaced out in a long line. Jingo shook his fist at the departing roar of Pinky’s Tempest. ‘Skunk!’ he roared. ‘Altimeter working okay now? That bloody eel ought to be yellow!’

We lumbered closer to the trees. ‘He might’ve been out of ammo,’ I puffed.

‘Outa guts, you mean.’ Jingo was puffing too, in the heavy flying gear. ‘He could’ve at least given them a close shave with his prop.’

We were near the elms, the bullets winging close. One of the dark trees lost a splotch of bark, near us the ground puckered upward in little neat bursts. At the first elm now and I looked back again.

The Germans were at the hedge-gap now, by Jingo’s crashed fighter. One dropped to his knees and got off a long burst with a light machine-gun. If those Germans clued that the other pile of smoking wreckage was all that remained of their fabled ace, they might well take it out on us.

We burst through the fringe of elm; ahead the ground dipped into bushes, and the rooftops of a town lay beyond them. Beside us a water-mill, the sails idle, deserted; a long canal curved around, past the mill.

‘Northern Holland I think,’ gasped Jingo. ‘Hope it’s not Hun-land.’

I knew what he meant. Downed pilots stood little chance sometimes. A louder crackle of shots behind us, so we ran down the canal path. No sign of people but at the curve, a wide-eyed boy wrapped in shabby clothes and holding a basket. Jingo bundled him aside, pointing at the bushes. He dropped his basket and ran.

‘Can’t run to the village,’ grunted Jingo. ‘If they’re Dutch, Jerry’ll shoot up the place.’ He scowled back. ‘Why don’t we stop and shoot it out — I’m not letting the buggers take me.’

Chanson du Roland again: I thought he’d snapped out of that. There was nobody to blow a horn and no French knights galloping to the rescue. And, jeeze, Jingo was no head-in-clouds dreamer —

‘Jingo, the cavalry is not coming over the hill, the war is over for us. Even if we get clear, they’ll never send us back up again — the war’s over.’

More shots — they were close, they’d seen us. I grabbed Jingo’s arm but he just looked at me. It was as though I’d slapped him hard.

‘Not over …’

That was it. He could not face the end of war, the end of his best years, daring death. The coal-miner’s son, who had rocketed into the clean blue heavens. I grabbed his arm again and pulled him along.

We were at the curve of the path now and there was heavy undergrowth ahead. We could hide there, we were still ahead. As we ran down the path, Jingo seemed to catch his foot and he fell heavily. He uttered a loud gasp.

‘Shit — my ankle —’

He collapsed against a big out-jutting rock. I knelt, felt a tug at my belt and Jingo had my Luger. He jabbed it into my ribs — very hard — and spoke quickly, tersely.

‘Gus, you can make it — get going.’

‘Jingo —’

The gun jabbed harder and his grey eyes became cold steel. ‘Get going or I will think you’re bloody yellow.’

The Germans were closer now and I could hear their careful shouts as they spread out. Shooting to force us out. My hand was suddenly kicked hard, numb, then a stab of intense pain. A chance bullet, two fingers suddenly splintered bone, masked already by flowing red blood. I gasped with pain and Jingo cut across.

‘See, you’re no use to me. Go on — go on or I will shoot —’ Then his voice broke, a sudden look of appeal. ‘Gus — go!’

Maybe even then I didn’t know his demons. But that gun jabbed and the grim steel was back in his eyes, my hand hurting savagely. His ankle broken so he could not run, a direct order to go, backed up by the Luger — and Jingo’s implacable promise to use it. Even so, I paused.

‘You’ll be okay?’

He nodded and winked, a little grin. And that wink, odd as it sounds, set me off. Jingo was totally unafraid, but I still felt a quick tug of shame as I ran. Already telling myself they would come in shooting if they saw us together. But they would not shoot one wounded man and Jingo would deep-six the Luger in the canal before they came up. Anyway, he was out of the war, so I ran on down the canal path and ducked aside into thick shrubbery.

I pushed through it, the springy branches whanging into my face, and winced with further intense stabbing pain as a branch flicked my shattered fingers. Only then thinking to shove my hand into my tunic, to stop leaving a blood trail. I pushed further in, the crackle-snap of the hard ground sounding like gunshots, then tripped and fell heavily, right onto my hand.

The pain made me black out, and in the moment I did, I thought I heard a distant crackle-snap, repeated once over. I don’t know how long I stayed there, it was at least some minutes before I came to. I rolled over, my breath frosty on my lips, and sat up. Pulled off my scarf and wrapped it around my hand and rolled over to my knees. Knelt there, waiting for footsteps, for the sound of German voices as the patrol searched for me. But nothing came and I waited, perhaps an hour — and still heard nothing.

They were gone?

I got up, staggering a bit and gritting my teeth because my hand felt like a big dog was chewing it. The thick undergrowth was wet and cold around me. The bushes had scratched my face, but even the blood was frozen. My boots seemed to weigh a ton as I clumped back down the path, the thin ice crackling loudly. I might well as have fired a cannon to announce my presence to any waiting Germans.

But no shouts came, nor the death-stutter of a machine-pistol. There was no noise ahead and none from the nearby village. Once the distant crump-boom of a howitzer, but not even an aircraft overhead. The howitzer stopped and silence fell, as though the war was holding its breath. I walked on, cold and somehow hot too, seeing everything through a glassy haze. Not caring if a German had me lined up in his sights.

Then I stopped.

Jingo Brook lay propped against a rock. His eyes were shut, and I thought for a second he was asleep — then I saw the two black-rimmed bullet-holes in his chest. He lay very still, in that last sleep that so many airmen before him had fallen into. He was dead. And this may sound crazy, but on his face was a look of peace — the first real peace I had seen there. As though Jingo had won his final battle — and perhaps he had.

The German patrol was nowhere to be seen. I think I was starting to develop a fever then. Stress, pain from my hand, or something viral; there was enough evil disease around in that last month of the war. I remember falling to my knees, feeling my own hot tears on ice-cold cheeks. A headache pounded in time with the red wavebeats of pain pounding me back into blackness.

Later that day, a patrol of Seaforth Highlanders picked me up. I was still by Jingo’s body.

I woke up a week later in hospital; fever, fatigue, the doctors said. A couple of R.A.F. brass-hats turned up and I was interviewed — interrogated — at length, about Jingo’s death. I was more surprised that nobody from the squadron came to see me, and later I found out that those who had wanted to weren’t allowed to.

And — even later — I found out why.

The Air Force nearly court-martialled me. Cowardice and suspicion of murder. Most of it came from Pinky. He’d heard the row between Jingo and myself and it had lost nothing in the re-telling. Then — he said — he saw my fighter on the ground with no apparent battle-damage. And Jingo’s body found with two 8mm bullet-holes — and no sign of my 8mm Luger.

Of course there was never enough real evidence. Jingo had attacked Helmut’s fighters without orders. And not everyone believed Pinky’s version — he copped a few broadsides from the other guys — which made him dislike me all the more.

So Jingo was written up in the papers as a hero. And I was quietly discharged and sent home with no sign of that medal Jingo had written me up for. A cloud over my name and lucky, I suppose, not to get those big red letters stamped on my file. But it was the end of war and everyone was going home; although for some, it was just another battlefield.

Linus Longstreet, war veteran and Ace, with fourteen kills, twice decorated for gallantry. He went home to Alabama to see his folks and, on the way to his home town, sat in the front of a bus. ‘Blacks’ were supposed to sit in the back, so two cops hauled him off the bus and beat his insides to a mush. Three ‘white-only’ hospitals refused to take him in; he was dead before they reached a fourth.

Loring Derwent de Chandos — he of the pink-rubber face. Well he did marry his fiancée and she made a brave show about caring for the wounded warrior. After a year the strain of seeing him was too much and she left. Loring blew his brains out with his Purdey shotgun.

Emile spent a year in the burns unit, married his girlfriend and they had a good life together. We exchanged letters till he died of old age.

And Piotr the Ukrainian. Well the squadron went back to England and a couple of Russian heavies descended on him one night at his lodgings. It appeared that the Soviet dictator, Joe Stalin, didn’t like anyone who’d fought beyond the borders of the Motherland. They might have become infected with democracy. So Piotr was hauled away and never heard from again.

Of course most of us adjusted okay. Ten-Yards Reg became a top-dressing pilot then — believe it — ran a shelter for old methos. Most sort of cross-wired their emotions to blank the war away; or it came out in bad dreams or bad behaviour. Nobody understood. Nessie’s first marriage failed, Pinky goes in and out of alcohol-addiction wards. I lucked a good marriage and wife who wasn’t slow to kick my arse if I hit the bottle. A normal life — normal as it got until old age when she died and my bad dreams started.

War. It was long over but the stress of war stayed inside like some evil plague bacilli lurking in our bloodstream; it wickedly re-surfaced from time to time and kicked us around like a damned soccer-ball. More as we got older.

I shut memories out, but never Jingo Brook; a man of war who fought his last battle against peace. I admired, even worshipped him — or perhaps it was that tearing restless spirit that needed war like a dry plant needed rain.

Perhaps I was his last casualty.

Grandpa’s journal ended here. Enclosed in the last page was a photocopied letter:

OFFICIAL RECORDS RELEASE